White Sox 10, Astros 1: Errant throw keys disastrous fifth inning

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Tipping point: The game turned in the middle of a play if that’s possible. Matt Downs made a brilliant stop on an Alexei Ramirez smash to lead off the fifth, but his throw was off, and the error started the defense and pitching letdowns that quickly turned a scoreless game into a 5-0 game that inning.

On the mound: It wasn’t all on the defense. Jordan Lyles didn’t help matters much in the fifth, as he gave up four singles and walked two batters. Lyles didn’t strike out any White Sox hitters, and the first strikeout came from Xavier Cedeno in the first at-bat for the bullpen.

At the plate: Jed Lowrie was responsible for the two best moments of the game, a home run in the ninth inning and comebacker nearly felled American League ERA leader Chris Sale in the sixth of his eight shutout innings. Like the White Sox, the Astros’ only extra-base hit was a home run, but they had 11 fewer singles.

Under the radar: While Sale has similar statistics this year against lefthanded and righthanded batters, the Astros believed he was tougher on lefties using a bigger sample size. So they loaded up as much as they could with righties, and their lefties Brett Wallace and Brian Bogusevic were both hitless the night after a home run apiece.

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CHICAGO — Somewhere long before this second bludgeoning in three days was over and the Astros had lost 10-1 to the Chicago White Sox on Saturday, it was looking like a matchup of best-case scenarios for the young starters on the mound.

American League ERA leader Chris Sale was baffling the Astros with his not-quite-sidearm delivery and a disappearing ball that led to four strikeouts in the first four shutout innings.

Jordan Lyles, two years younger than the 23-year-old Sale, was at his best, too. His best is not a strikeout highlight reel. In fact, the finesse righthander had no strikeouts, but he had coaxed a host of weak outs in four shutout innings of his own.

But for Lyles, a best-case scenario turned into a worst-case scenario in the span of one-third of an inning. And just as the best-case was tailored to his style of pitching, so too was the worst.

Lyles needs his defense more than anyone on the staff other than extreme contact pitcher Lucas Harrell, who faces Rice product Philip Humber in the finale Sunday as the Astros look to win the series.

Pleading the fifth

And once Lyles’ defense started to go, so did he.

Alexei Ramirez led off the fifth inning with a hot shot to the hot corner that the Astros’ Matt Downs snatched with a nice play, but he threw wildly to first for an error. On the next play, second baseman Jose Altuve threw late and wild to first for an infield single and an error.

Walk, single, single, sacrifice fly, walk, single was the coda to Lyles’ afternoon, going from shutout to blowout while recording only one out.

“I didn’t make pitches and I put guys on base and I gave up those hits,” said Lyles, whose four earned runs out of five runs in 4 1⁄3 innings lifted his ERA to 5.40. “That’s definitely on me.”

Still, a team that could afford no mistakes against Sale — Astros manager Brad Mills even brought his infield in early knowing there might not be any runs available late — had made them.

Sale no bargain

Sale (8-2) would continue to dominate, lowering his ERA from 2.30 to 2.05 with the one-time reliever making a bid to start the All-Star Game for the American League. In the eight scoreless innings, he allowed four hits and no walks and struck out seven.

Confounding matters with his three-quarter or maybe two-thirds arm slot from the left side were the games that the sun and shadows were playing with a rare mid-afternoon start.

“He probably is tough to pick up from that arm slot, but anything was tough to see today,” Mills said. “And in saying that, I don’t want to take anything away from Chris Sale. But at the same time, you drop the arm slot, you drop that sun and shadow coming in, things start to mount pretty quick.”

It was probably fitting that the White Sox’s first at-bat after Lyles left was the first strikeout. Even more so that the first Astros at-bat after Sale left was a home run for Jed Lowrie, who became the first Astros shortstop since Andujar Cedeno in 1994 to homer in three straight games.

But by that point, the White Sox had reached double digits on an Adam Dunn grand slam to center off Rhiner Cruz in the eighth. The game by then no longer resembled a great pitching matchup of a couple of kids.